Heaven of NYU Students

Student Sonya Banner submitted the following images:
Student Sheela Ambooken, who has treated many dying patients as a respiratory
therapist, feels death is best confronted with strong spiritual feelings. Sheela
analyses the stages of death as she quotes Rabindranath Tagore: "Death, thy servant, is at my door. He has
crossed the unknown sea and brought thy call to my home.
The night is dark and my heart is fearful-- yet I will take up the lamp, open my gates and bow to
him my welcome. It is thy messengar who stands at my door. I will worship him with folded
hands, and with tears. I will worship him placing at his feet the treasure of my heart.
He will go back with his errand done, leaving a dark shadow on my morning; and in my desolate
home only my forlorn self will remain as my last offering to thee. Sheela Ambooken
looks at the wonder of heaven through the eyes of father and son in Tagore's The Fugitive:
"The father came back from the funeral rites. His boy of seven stood at the window, with eyes wide
open and a golden amulet hanging from his neck, full of thoughts too difficult for his age.
His father took him in his arms and the boy asked him, "Where is mother?"
"In heaven," answered his father, pointing to the sky.
The boy raised his eyes to the sky and long gazed in silence. His bewildered mind sent abroad into
the night the question, "Where is heaven?"
No answer came: and the stars seemed like the burning tears of that ignorant darkness.
Photo credits: Sonya Banner..
Student Diedra Floyd depicts a satirical heaven in Balletland in her collage: